Dan Romero and Erik Torenberg talk about their intellectual evolution, why San Francisco is back, and the ideas finding new momentum because of the thorny politics in tech the last few years. If you’re looking for SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR or HIPAA compliance, head to Vanta for $1000 off: https://www.vanta.com/zen – SPONSORS: VANTA | NETSUITE Are you building a business? If you’re looking for SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR or HIPAA compliance, head to Vanta. Achieving compliance can actually unlock major growth for your company and build customer loyalty. Vanta automates up to 90% of Compliance work, getting you audit-ready in weeks instead of months and saving 85% of associated costs. Moment of Zen listeners get $1000 off at: https://www.vanta.com/zen NetSuite has 25 years of providing financial software for all your business needs. More than 36,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you’re looking for an ERP platform head to NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/zen and download your own customized KPI checklist. – Sign up for our newsletter to receive the full shownotes: https://momentofzen.substack.com/ – SELECT LINKS: Dan’s reference: the most interesting new city project in San Francisco: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/land-purchases-solano-county.html James Portnoy, Founder of Barstool, going on the offensive against a Washington Post reporter writing a hit piece: https://deadline.com/2023/09/barstool-sports-owner-dave-portnoy-confronts-washington-post-reporter-1235554436/ Most important blog: Scott Alexander’s https://slatestarcodex.com/ which is now Astral Codex Ten https://www.astralcodexten.com/ Curtis Yarvin: https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/, https://graymirror.substack.com/ – X / TWITTER: @dwr (Dan) @eriktorenberg (Erik Torenberg) @moz_podcast @TurpentineMedia – TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Episode Preview (05:00) Why San Francisco’s Network Effects, like Twitter, is futile to leave (Network Effects are a bitch) (13:40) Tech reclaiming a political voice (15:30) Sponsors: Vanta | NetSuite (17:40) Media losing ground after taking too many shots during the last administration (20:35) Mood affiliation  & social justice policies in tech companies (23:05) In this economy? (30:41) Balaji Srinivasan (34:25)The Borg (39:10) Social Supply Chain (40:21) Curtis Yarvin (59:40) Bring your whole self to work (01:03:00) The clear pill: winning by losing (01:10:00) Good ideas, bad UI (01:16:35) Newspapers are a mood affiliation business (01:19:24) Right and Left wing, who loses in the long arc of history? (01:26:30) Dan’s thinking around the next successful candidate (01:33:05) Threshold for changing your thinking

Dan Romero, Antonio Garcia Martinez, and Erik Torenberg sit down with Professor Walter Russel Mead, an American academic, author, WSJ- and Tablet-contributor, and podcast host to discuss the shape of the next era after our information age. Moment of Zen is part of Turpentine podcast network. Learn more: www.turpentine.co RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: Founding a business is just the tip of the iceberg; the real complexity comes with scaling it. On 1 to 1000, hosts Jack Altman and Erik Torenberg dig deep into the inevitable twists and turns operators encounter along the journey of turning an idea into a business. Hear all about the tactical challenges of scaling from the people that built up the world’s leading companies like Stripe, Ramp, and Lattice. Our first episode with Eric Glyman of Ramp is out now: https://link.chtbl.com/1to1000 -- Walter Russell Mead is one of our favorite guests on Moment of Zen, and he also has his own show called What Really Matters, a new podcast from Tablet Magazine (whose editor in chief, Alana Newhouse, was also on our show recently). Every week on What Really Matters, Mead and deputy editor Jeremy Stern analyze the revolutionary changes upending American life and connect them to larger trends. Go to tabletmag.com/podcasts/what-really-matters or subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. TIMESTAMPS: (01:00) Episode Preview (03:30) What is the American Crisis right now? (08:00) New social model for the information age (11:24) Sponsors: Vanta | NetSuite (16:30) A(brahamic) bomb and revolutionary change in human society (22:40) Has religion peaked or is the world getting more religious? (28:00) Who believes in happy endings? (30:30) Israel vs. American Jews (33:00) Israeli-Palestinian conflict still matters, just not to Israelis in power (36:40) Characterizing American foreign policy (45:00) Nation states vs Network States h/t Balaji (54:20) Defining the next era of Post Liberalism (1:01:00) Populists, Plutocrats, Technocrats, and the Intelligentsia (1:11:00) Israel’s future and what’s at stake (1:24:00) Could California be Republican again? (1:30:00) Golda Meir and female power (1:33:50) Arafat and a jasmine-scented night in Gaza LINKS: -What Really Matters podcast: https://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/what-really-matters -Walter Russell Mead, The A(braham) Bomb: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/abraham-bomb-via-meadia-walter-russell-mead -Antonio Garcia Martinez, Among the Protestors: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/among-the-protesters-antonio-garcia-martinez -Go back and listen to our Moment of Zen episodes with Tablet’s Editor in Chief Alana Newhouse (E29), Nadia Asparouhova (E26) and Liel Leibovitz (E23) X / TWITTER @wrmead (Walter) @WRMpod (What Really Matters) @eriktorenberg (Erik) @antoniogm (Antonio) @dwr (Dan) @moz_podcast (Moment of Zen) SPONSORS: Vanta | NetSuite Are you building a business? If you’re looking for SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR or HIPAA compliance, head to Vanta. Achieving compliance can actually unlock major growth for your company and build customer loyalty. Vanta automates up to 90% of Compliance work, getting you audit-ready in weeks instead of months and saving 85% of associated costs. Moment of Zen listeners get $1000 off at https://www.vanta.com/zen NetSuite has 25 years of providing financial software for all your business needs. More than 36,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you’re looking for an ERP platform, head to NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/ZEN and download your own customized KPI checklist.

Balaji Srinivasan returns to go deeper into his theory of the Social Lens. Balaji, Erik, and Dan discuss the tactics the Gray tribe can use to create, identify, grow, and scale their power, how the tribal lens maps to geopolitics, the Blue playbook through the last several decades of world history, and more. We're proudly sponsored by Vanta. Get $1000 off Vanta with https://www.vanta.com/zen Note: This is an unfiltered discussion that functions as an early draft for an essay and video Balaji plans to release soon. RECOMMENDED PODCAST: On 1 to 1000, hosts Jack Altman and Erik Torenberg dig deep into the inevitable twists and turns operators encounter along the journey of turning an idea into a business. Our first episode with Eric Glyman of Ramp is out now: https://link.chtbl.com/1to1000 TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) - Episode Preview (02:20) - You can found a tribe just like you can found a startup (10:30) - Exit vs Reform (16:42) - Sponsors: Vanta, NetSuite (19:05) - Any statement can be problematized (29:00) - Can you presume societal stability? Not if you’re thinking like a CEO (34:00) - Strength of network effects (52:20) - Inequality has decreased (55:15) - Japanese vs Chinese economic model for innovation (01:07:45) - Asia is rising, the US is in relative decline (01:30:15) - How Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Garry Tan respond to Blue or reform it from within (01:38:00) - The Market for Revolutionaries: Myanmar, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Hong Kong and China (01:48:00) - Blue is a business model (01:57:00) - Charity is dependency. Investment is independence. (02:06:00) - Who defines democracy, and where is the term going? (02:27:00) - Grays attract the smartest defectors (02:36:30) - How the Gray territory gets built on land (02:49:49) - What is the highest belief and ideology of each tribe? (02:56:00) - Parallels with the Soviet Union and India (03:15:00) - Mapping the advantages to Blue and Gray (03:28:50) - How Gray beats Blue for control of cities (03:33:00) - Gray pride parade (03:40:00) - Winning the police (03:50:00) - How the Grays in San Francisco will organize themselves (03:55:30 - The power of Elon renaming Twitter (03:57:00) - Small business owners and the working class (04:00:00) - The CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) in reverse (04:17:00) - AI will help expedite the Gray cause (04:20:00) - Can this really happen? SELECT LINKS: The Network State Conference in Amsterdam on October 30 : https://lu.ma/tnsconf Ronald Brownstein, America is Growing Apart, For Good https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/06/red-and-blue-state-divide-is-growing-michael-podhorzer-newsletter/661377/ 9 dot puzzle: https://edcraft.io/blog/all-articles/9-dots-puzzle-how-to-connect-9-dots-with-4-lines Steve Weinberg, Taking on the Trust - https://a.co/d/4lsaEmi Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State - https://a.co/d/gigQiPJ Sanjana Friedman, San Francisco’s Homeless Ticking Time Bomb https://www.piratewires.com/p/san-francisco-homeless-ticking-time-bomb X / Twitter @balajis (Balaji) @dwr (Dan) @eriktorenberg (Erik) @MOZ_Podcast SPONSORS: Vanta | NetSuite Are you building a business? If you’re looking for SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR or HIPAA compliance, head to Vanta. Achieving compliance can actually unlock major growth for your company and build customer loyalty. Vanta automates up to 90% of Compliance work, getting you audit-ready in weeks instead of months and saving 85% of associated costs. Moment of Zen listeners get $1000 off at https://www.vanta.com/zen NetSuite has 25 years of providing financial software for all your business needs. More than 36,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you’re looking for an ERP platform, head to NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/ZEN and download your own customized KPI checklist.

Balaji Srinivasan joins Erik Torenberg and Dan Romero on the Moment of Zen podcast to share his new theory of the Tribal Lens, why cognitive territories will gain increasingly more power than land-defined territories, why the US is no longer a beacon in the world, and Balaji strategy to fix San Francisco. Make sure you're subscribed to https://link.chtbl.com/moz to get notified when we release Part 2. RECOMMENDED PODCAST: Founding a business is just the tip of the iceberg; the real complexity comes with scaling it. On 1 to 1000, hosts Jack Altman and Erik Torenberg dig deep into the inevitable twists and turns operators encounter along the journey of turning an idea into a business. Hear all about the tactical challenges of scaling from the people that built up the world’s leading companies like Stripe, Ramp, and Lattice. Our first episode with Eric Glyman of Ramp is out now: https://link.chtbl.com/1to1000 Moment of Zen is part of the Turpentine podcast network. Learn more: www.turpentine.co RECOMMENDED PODCAST: ECON 102 w/ Noah Smith Subscribe: https://link.chtbl.com/Econ102 TOPICS DISCUSSED: (00:00) Episode Preview (07:50) Cloud Cartography: If you don't control the cognitive territory. you don't control the lands (13:30) Sponsors: Vanta, NetSuite (17:30) Why people don't take the internet seriously? (22:30) The US is not a nation state (23:45) A civilization state (25:17) Why Americans should learn about India's history / India and the US are converging (30:50) Why a civil war doesn't seem realistic to people now (38:55) Where else should a talented person move? (41:35) Asia is the new global center, (47:10) Internet first, not America first (01:01:45) Software vs. Hardware (01:05:45) Elon and the Grey Strategy (01:16:40) Israel is looking away from the US for partners (01:19:00) The Tribal lens integrates both domestic and foreign politics (01:21:00) Will blue always win?  (01:23:43) Making sense of the China meltdown story (01:34:55) How to fix San Francisco (01:50:30) Irrationality is an advantage (01:57:00) Building gray turf (02:03:00) Mapping the blues, reds, and grays in San Francisco (02:05:20) Dan and Erik debrief SELECT LINKS * For more shownotes directly to your inbox, subscribe to our Substack: https://momentofzen.substack.com/ Not Too Long Ago Americans Didn't Care About Taiwan, https://x.com/balajis/status/1657852505425063936?s=46 Jacob Siegel and Liel Leibovitz, End US Aid to Israel, Tablet Magazine - https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/end-american-aid-israel Louis-Vincent Gave, Making Sense of the China Meltdown Story , Gavekal - https://research.gavekal.com/article/making-sense-of-the-china-meltdown-story/ Beautifultrouble.org - Balaji refers to this as the degrowth handbook X / Twitter @balajis (Balaji) @dwr (Dan) @eriktorenberg (Erik) @MOZ_Podcast SPONSORS: Vanta | NetSuite Are you building a business? If you’re looking for SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR or HIPAA compliance, head to Vanta. Achieving compliance can actually unlock major growth for your company and build customer loyalty. Vanta automates up to 90% of Compliance work, getting you audit-ready in weeks instead of months and saving 85% of associated costs. Moment of Zen listeners get $1000 off at https://www.vanta.com/zen NetSuite has 25 years of providing financial software for all your business needs. More than 36,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you’re looking for an ERP platform, head to NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/ZEN and download your own customized KPI checklist.

On this episode, Erik Torenberg and Dan Romero analyze what Vivek Ramaswamy’s rise in the polls really means, where he goes from here, and we air Erik’s full interview with Vivek from this spring. Vivek discusses his transformation from founder to candidate, his views on Silicon Valley, his concept of meritocracy, depoliticizing corporations, and lays out his policy proposals. We're proudly sponsored by Vanta. Get $1000 off Vanta with https://www.vanta.com/zen Moment of Zen is part of the Turpentine podcast network. Learn more: www.turpentine.co RECOMMENDED PODCAST: Founding a business is just the tip of the iceberg; the real complexity comes with scaling it. On 1 to 1000, hosts Jack Altman and Erik Torenberg dig deep into the inevitable twists and turns operators encounter along the journey of turning an idea into a business. Hear all about the tactical challenges of scaling from the people that built up the world’s leading companies like Stripe, Ramp, and Lattice. Our first episode with Eric Glyman of Ramp is out now: https://link.chtbl.com/1to1000 TOPICS DISCUSSED: (00:00) Episode Preview (02:23) What is the excitement about Vivek really about? (05:00) Why don’t democrats nominate business people? (06:28) Who is Vivek’s constituency? (08:18) What happens in a world where Trump doesn’t exist? (10:20) Immigration stance differences between Trump and Vivek (14:57) Vivek’s anti woke platform vs DeSantis’ anti woke legislations (16:50) Vivek as a right wing Elizabeth Warren Civility (19:15) Is there a way for a republican to be cool? (22:45) Republicans want an attack dog (24:00) 2028 and beyond (29:55) Interview: When Vivek set his sights on running for president (36:20) Vivek’s presidential platform: Affirmative action, Climate, Fed, Drug crisis (44:11) Where Vivek overlaps/differs with Silicon Valley: free speech, DEI, SVB (51:20) How Vivek conceptualizes a meritocracy (58:00) How to remove politics from corporations (01:05:32) Silicon Valley should empathize more with the rest of the country? (01:16:35) Defining “woke” (01:22:40) What’s it like to run a presidential campaign X / Twitter @VivekGRamaswamy (Vivek) @dwr (Dan) @eriktorenberg (Erik) @MOZ_Podcast SPONSORS: Vanta | NetSuite Are you building a business? If you’re looking for SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR or HIPAA compliance, head to Vanta. Achieving compliance can actually unlock major growth for your company and build customer loyalty. Vanta automates up to 90% of Compliance work, getting you audit-ready in weeks instead of months and saving 85% of associated costs. Moment of Zen listeners get $1000 off at www.vanta.com/zen NetSuite has 25 years of providing financial software for all your business needs. More than 36,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you’re looking for an ERP platform, head to NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/ZEN and download your own customized KPI checklist.